Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ FinTech Momentum and More

This fortnight has further reinforced the massive momentum behind the plethora of fintech initiatives across Scotland and wearing my running shoes has been essential to keep up with the pace!

What is especially exciting about this momentum is the diversity of participants engaging in the fintech opportunity, all embracing our mission of making a better world for all through financial innovation, collaboration and inclusion.

For example, I was very much energised on meeting David Duffy, chief executive of Clydesdale Yorkshire Bank Group last week, hearing how a major financial institution was very much pioneering to embrace the fintech momentum.

Key to this is the open and progressive way in which the CYBG leadership engage with smaller entrepreneurial enterprises to ensure effective collaboration, fueling new innovation for the Bank.

Collaborative Momentum

This collaborative momentum was also very much in evidence at the Baillie Gifford Fintech Event on Wednesday, held at the impressive new Tynecastle Park.

Anurag Agrawal, Adrian Fern and the team put together an excellent programme bringing together the expertise of Baillie Gifford with a range of entrepreneurs from the Scottish fintech community to share insights and mutual opportunities.

Importantly this collaboration extended to involving other key partners on the day such as DataLab, University of Edinburgh, Scottish Business Network and Scotland IS.

It was super to share the stage with Keith Phillips from the Investment Association and hear about their exciting fintech accelerator initiative, Velocity, which we will be collaborating with the team on to link in the Scottish fintech community.

On a broader level, it was great to demonstrate the collaborative momentum with the announcement of Prudential as a strategic partner to Fintech Scotland.

David Macmillan, the managing director for the wealth solutions division, has significant international experience in fintech innovation in the investment and pensions sector and we are looking forward to engaging his innovative team with the fintech community.

Building on the collaborative momentum was very much key to the meetings with the HSBC team led by Colin Halpin who is brilliantly leading inspiring collaboration initiatives in respect of future skills and education, all are imperative to fintech longer term success.

People Momentum

On the subject of skills, it was very poignant to have an advance start to FinTech Fortnight on Thursday in the Kingdom of Fife with the launch of the FinTech Skills Academy.

The community led momentum behind setting up the Fife FinTech Skills Consortium to develop the skills base is really impressive and it was a massive privilege to be at the event hosted by Paywizard in Kirkaldy.

Very much inspired by the people leadership by Jim Tomaney and Jamie of Renovite Technologies as well as Iain Shirlaw and Krystyna Marett to making this happen. Very much an initiative we hope to build upon.

It was great to share thoughts with the Fife fintech community on how we can build on this momentum and further reinforce the region as a leading driving force of innovation working with Fife College and Fife Council.

I must admit it was a bit of a rush over the bridge to Kirkaldy on Thursday as I was speaking at the Inspiring Futures annual Scottish conference beforehand in Edinburgh. This tough was no dress rehearsal!

Thank you to Anna Halliday and the team for inviting me to share with their professional education audience of teachers and career advisers on how the world of fintech was relevant to everybody and the importance diversity of skills the sector needed to thrive in the future.

Hopefully, one day, maybe some of the young people they are guiding on their career journeys will join a fintech skills academy or firm so we can maintain the momentum of innovation across Scotland

Importantly, the focus of the people momentum is also on diversity, for example in progressing a much better gender balance in the skills such as technology that are key to the future of fintech.

So it was fantastic to attend the Women in STEM event last week at Codebase, expertly organized by Lisa Thomson and the PurposeHR team. Terrific to hear from Marcus Corner on how the practical steps the fintech firm Modulr are putting this at the forefront of their people development.

This is also a key strategic theme I very much look forward to further working with Aileen O’Hagan and the Equate Scotland team on to ensure there is continuing momentum behind the question of gender diversity in fintech and broader financial services.

Strategic Momentum

At a strategic level there are a number of initiatives which are gaining momentum across the fintech community.
For example, it was terrific to catch up on Monday with Anthony Rafferty, Ken May, Michael Roe and Iain Muir at Origo on their brilliant leadership in respect of the high profile pensions dashboard initiative.

A challenging but hugely valuable strategic project which will have a direct impact on millions of people in the future as well as importantly playing a key linkage to the open banking developments.

Open banking continues to be a strategic priority and great to be working with Andy Maciver and Gavin Littlejohn in crafting the market positioning for this hugely significant development.

It was also invaluable as always to get the insightful strategic feedback and thoughts from Ian Mckenna of FTRC last week in London on this whole area and share our mutual enthusiasm on how open banking presents a massive opportunity to reinvent financial services.

Infact, it goes beyond financial services and meeting with Lucinda Rivers and Daniel from UNICEF reinforced to me the broader opportunities of strategic collaboration for fintech.

Executing strategic opportunities with Scotland’s fintech community was top of the agenda in meeting Myron Hrycyk and Colin Carmichael of Sopra Steria in London and I am excited about how we can accelerate the strategic momentum working with the University of Edinburgh.

This will be further complemented by of our recently announced academic and industry fintech initiative with the University of Edinburgh being planned for November which will play a key role in driving forward the strategic fintech momentum.

The strategic momentum also extends to working across sectors to develop broader innovation opportunities in Scotland and it was great to continue this conversation with Trish Quinn, Hugh Wallace, Sarah Thomson, Ian Spencer and Promilla Caughey from their respective Scottish Government teams

The strategic opportunities on a global scale are also very important to our ambitions and in this respect I have very much valued the engagement of the Deloitte team of Kent Mackenzie, Chris Brown, Daniel Cheddie and Noornet Singh. Excited about we further build Scotland’s fintech visibility on the world fintech stage.

Visible Momentum

The momentum behind Scotland’s fintech visibility is certainly growing and it was fabulous to see a number of people from fintech community profiled on BBC Scotland News this week with its special news item on the fintech momentum in Scotland.

Terrific TV interview pieces with Steve Tigar of Money Dashboard, John McHugh of Gigly and Tynah Matembe of Money Matix, huge pride in how their fintech innovation was shared across the national audience.

The Money Matix also had the opportunity to showcase on the big stage at the Social Enterprise World Forum in Edinburgh where their fintech innovation received a wonderful response.

Also massively proud of Loral Quinn of Sustainably and Colin Hewitt of Float for creating their fintech visibility by being selected by Tech Nation for their innovation programme,

Congratulation also to Loral and the team for moving into your new home in Leith, it has been wonderful have you all live with us this last month inside our FinTech Scotland home. We miss you already.

On an academic level this visible momentum is going to continue with the launch of the very first Journal on Financial Technology and it was great to catch up this week with Jamie Gabbay from Heriot-Watt who is leading on this, more to come on this soon.

Marathon Momentum

I am planning to take all this momentum into my running this weekend with a marathon race in Lancaster although as I write this blog I am not sure if that is now going to be realistic!

I’ve been hit with a bug this last week and I am wondering whether I can do the 26.2 miles justice or whether I should defer to another race in a few weeks time!!

Some family time on Friday night will allow me to make a decision. What I do know is that I will need to be ready to join the fantastic fintech community and friends across Scotland on Monday for the start of FinTech Fortnight.

Absolutely amazing the programme of events and activities out together by everyone plus so pleased we are able to welcome so many international guests from all parts of the globe during the two weeks.

I hope to see as many of you as possible over this next fortnight and thank you again for making this all happen.

Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ The Home For FinTech

I’ve always been sure that Scotland is a natural home for fintech growth and innovation and my journeys over the last few weeks has reinforced this belief in so many ways.

The home of fintech really came alive for me during the meeting last Friday to discuss the development of the Fife FinTech Academy with Iain Shirlaw, John Mcfarlane, Krystyna Marett and Ann Salt.

Developing the skills for a bright fintech home of the future is crucial and the Academy initiative with an initial focus on financial payments will ensure the Fife region continues to lead the way globally.

You’ll be hearing more details on this following the launch event as a curtain raiser for FinTech Scotland Fortnight in September.

However, in the meantime the fantastic news from the global fintech player Renovite Technologies to expand further is testament to Fife being a key area of Scotland’s fintech home.

Innovation Home

Meeting new and established fintech firms demonstrated that innovation is alive and well in our home. For example, the credentials and track record of Inside Secure were wonderful to hear about when I caught up with Douglas Kinloch and Neal Michie at their Glasgow office one evening.

I’m excited about connecting the Inside Secure team with the fintech payment firms in Fife to take advantage of collaboration opportunities.

Similarly, from our meeting recently with David Eccles from Wallscope we can see potential to drive innovation in the home by making connections with key stakeholders

The value of an innovation led home was very much in abundance when Mickael and I met up with Mark Doherty, Stephen Pollock and Jason at Avaloq yesterday and then had the chance to join their All Hands’ meeting. Fantastic people with a fabulous working environment.

As initial founding partners of FinTech Scotland, Avaloq play a significant role in Scotland and globally and it is exciting working with them to support their growth and people development plans.

During their session, I was asked whether we can measure the real level of innovation taking place in Scorland.

This gave me the opportunity to highlight the innovation audit’ work we have been progressing with the Scottish Government CanDo team along with a couple of other sectors. I’m looking forward to progressing this work with June Love, Joanna McKenzie and the team.

Sharing the exciting innovation happening in our Scotland fintech home is always a privilege and on Wednesday there was the opportunity to do so with Scottish Government Minister Kate Forbes and UK Treasury Minister John Glenn.

Wonderful to hear the broad range of fintech leaders share how they are reinvesting financial services as well as candidly expressed the challenges in driving forward innovation in financial services.

Thank you to all who joined me for the Ministerial visit to Fintech Scotland, you all did the fintech community proud. Big thanks also to Shery, Fiona and Niamh for making everything run so smoothly.

Later that day I ran over Glasgow to join the MBN Solutions and DataLab fabulous event for data scientists to share thoughts on why fintech is a wonderful home to develop a career path in Scotland.

Many thanks to Paul Forrest, Mickael Young, Rob Huggins and their super team, sorry I had to rush off at the end to get back for my daughters 18th birthday!

In a slightly different part of the fintech home, catching up with Suhail Ahmed of Advisory Direct and then later that day with Eleanor Tucker of GangHut at the Product Tank event highlighted to me the power of new collaborations in the fintech home.

Collaboration Home

The subject of collaboration opportunities was very much on the agenda with my catch up with Nucleus Financial chief executive David Fergusson, and of course, chair of FinTech Scotland

David rightly challenged me on whether larger enterprises were genuinely innovating and embracing collaboration opportunities in the market with fintech firms.

There are some terrific examples happening such The ID.Co work with CYBG and the Castlight Financial team with HSBC.

Meeting up with Philip Grant of Lloyds Bank Group and then separately also with Sarah Barry of Sainsbury Bank highlighted that the banking sector is seeing the value in fintech collaboration to strengthen our collective home.

Meeting Colin Carmichael from our strategic partner Sopra Steria allowed us to develop plans to progress this and, furthermore, identify new emerging collaboration opportunities.

For example, my meeting with the Hymans Robertson team John Taylor, Scott Finnie and Barry Smart made it clear that there are fintech collaboration opportunities very much in the pensions and employee benefits space going forward.

Fintech collaboration can go beyond the various financial services sectors and so it was good to meet up last week with Christian Beveridge and Derek Toal of Virgin Media explore cross sector opportunities. Great to hear about their role at the FinTech Summit in September.

For me one of the exemplars of collaboration is JP Morgan, reinforced in my conversation with Douglas of Inside Secure.

So it was a privilege to plays a role in last weeks JP Morgan FinTech Roundtable with a broad spectrum of guests from the asset management sector. Thank you to Stephen Flaherty, Sandy Brodie and the team, much to take on board on how to unlock the collaboration potential in our home.

In this respect, I am delighted to have worked with Scottish Enterprise to welcome the Vivolution team as the FinTech Scotland Network Integrator and into our home to foster the collaboration and support fintech firms in Scotland with growth.

Home of Excellence

Building a home of excellence for fintech firms is a key objective and the expertise of the Vivolution team will support fintech firms with funding and commercial development.

It was good to talk this all through at the FinTech Practitioners Group Meeting recently and it was terrific to have such a great attendance from the community, even if it was a bit of a squeeze!

Thank you to everyone who came along and your valuable contributions and feedback, next main meetings in October will focus on funding sources and options plus a fintech home social’.

Our appreciation to Anneli Ritari-Stewart and the team from our strategic partner Dentsu Aegis for hosting and making us all feel so much at home in Scotland’s epicentre of digital and marketing. And of course, wonderful to see the Whitespace team now part of the Dentsu Aegis family and in the fintech home.

A few days before the Practitioners Forum, we had the latest Open Banking Excellence meet up, great conversation and super to see even more new faces. Thanks again to James Varga for hosting.

Developing the Open Banking Centre of Excellence continues to be a key priority working with the inspiring Gavin Littlejohn plus a core team from the University of Edinburgh. Thanks again Damien, Douglas, Kevin and Triinu Hansen

Really useful meeting with Colin Garland, director of the Competition and Markets Authority on the subject of the centre of excellence strategy and plans, thanks Colin very much appreciated your enthusiasm for this initiative and great to hear about your expansion plans in Scotland.

Similarly, it was tremendously useful to catch up with Simon Thompson, chief executive of the Chartered Bankers Institute who have a key role to play in the emergence of a global open banking centre of excellence. Very much appreciate your insight and engagement Simon, looking forward to collaborating further on a local and international level.

International Home

Another of our key objectives is to embrace the global fintech opportunities for our home here in Scotland and sharing the story to gain interest in what we are doing is something we always grasp.

So, it was brilliant to be given the opportunity to present to some significant Middle east and Far East sovereign fund and institutional fund investors who were being hosted by the University of Edinburgh

Thank you to The ID.Co, Money Dashboard and Sustainably for supporting me with the conversations as well as George Baxter, chief executive of Edinburgh Innovations for including us in the opportunity.

The recent late Friday afternoon meeting with Kent Mackenzie and Chris Brown from our global professional services partner Deloitte got me excited on how we can develop the fintech home on a international stage going forward.

Reinforced this last two weeks with international conversations on our fintech home stretching from as far away as Rhode Island, USA and as near as Ireland. Thank you Paul Snape and David Clarke I look forward to seeing you both during our Fintech Fortnight with your colleagues.

We are delighted that Scottish International Week led by global leader Russell Dalgleish starting 17th September coincides with Fintech Fortnight and we look forward to welcoming many global guests to our fintech home during this time.

A huge thank you to everyone across the community who is contributing to making FinTech Fortnight happen in a few weeks time and the great support from our friends at Visit Scotland.

On the subject of international themes, many congratulations to my global mentor Promilla Caughey on taking up a new role with the Scottish Government, a fantastic career move and so well deserved.

Running for Homes

I’ll be running for homes on Sunday as I take part in the 15 mile urban rush race from South Queensferry to Holyrood for the charity Shelter Scotland.

The Shelter Scotland fight to address the impact of homelessness has always meant a great deal to me and this is my small way of contributing to their great work. Everyone deserves a home that is safe and secure.

This will be a great practice race ahead of my marathon in two weeks time just prior to the official start of FinTech Fortnight on 17thSeptember. Until then!

Fintech and Gamification

This article was written by Phil Smy from Pocket Sized Hands. Pocket Sized Hands is a software company who have developed games using gamification techniques for St. Andrews University and for other clients.

There’s a consistent theme in the challenges that financial companies face when interacting with existing and new customers, engagement and education. Customers find interacting with financial services to be unengaging due to lack of understanding, complexity and jargon.

Many fintech companies are utilising new ways to tackle this problem, namely gamification. Gamification is the application of game concepts, features and game design principles for non-gaming applications. In practice these techniques come in the form of rewarding good behaviour, implementing interactivity to engage customers or visualising data.

The purpose of this is to engage and inform individuals through novel means. In the past, gamification techniques have been used within various sectors. Education have benefited from gamification to inform and engage students. Fitness companies have used gamification to encourage a healthy lifestyle. For many businesses, gamification has been found to be a cost-effective method of training in comparison to traditional training techniques.

Education

Gamification within education is a growing trend. The basis of using gamification within a teaching context is that if users are engaged with games that communicate lessons through gameplay mechanics or objectives, users can learn without even realizing it. If you give a young person the option to play a mobile game, doing their homework or attending a lecture, most young people will want to play the game.

Applying this to the fintech industry and you can see how young people (or people of all ages) could play gamified applications with rewards and interactions to better engage with their financial future. Through feedback loops, customers can learn to make good choices with their money and stop spending their money recklessly. By utilising these techniques, fintech companies can reward and condition good financial behaviour.

Rewards

Gamification rewards can be divided into two different sections, extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. An example of an extrinsic reward within gamification is the accumulation of points, achievements, places on a high score table etc. For fintech, instead of earning points, the user can be saving money.

For example, if a user saves some money through their pension pot or financial plan, the application would be able to visualise and summarise how much they have saved and reward the user for saving a certain amount, this can also work with real word rewards.

Companies in the past have experimented with real life rewards such as vouchers and money off products and services. In terms of intrinsic rewards, educating users of financial plans and other elements of finance can help financial companies engage and inform their customers.

Conclusion

The overall goal of gamification applications is to change the behaviour of consumers on a wide scale. Gamification does this by educating users of potential bad habits and rewarding users for their good habits. Dr. Iain Donald of Abertay University, the leading games design university in Europe summarises it perfectly.
“The application of game design and technology to engage new audiences has proven to be extremely beneficial, both in the education and entertainment sectors. Increasingly that potential is being harnessed in other industries from medicine through to finance.“

Driving fintech growth in Scotland

FinTech Scotland, in partnership with Scottish Enterprise, has announced today the appointment of corporate innovation firm Vivolution to support the drive of fintech growth in Scotland.

One of FinTech Scotland’s strategic priorities is to support fintech firms’ growth and innovation by enabling access to funding and professional support services.

To deliver this, Vivolution has been appointed to lead a new Fintech Network Integrator service providing take to market and Investment sourcing services to fintech start-ups and scale-ups.

Specifically, Vivolution will be helping fintech firms from across Scotland to accelerate their potential in domestic and international markets as well as encouraging collaborations between financial services, start-ups, investors, regulators, industry and academia.

Commenting on this announcement, Stephen Ingledew said: “Scotland has got everything it takes to be one of the leading fintech hubs in the world and the appointment of Vivolution will further support the collaboration across the sector. We are looking forward to working closely with the team.”

Fintech director at Scottish Enterprise, Danny Cusick, added: “Our Network Integrator is a tried and tested model aimed at supporting the development of emerging or niche sectors. Through innovation and collaboration, Vivolution will work with Scottish Enterprise to help companies to maximise their growth ambitions and position Scotland as the location of choice for future Fintech investment.”

Mark Roger at Vivolution, said: “We are delighted to be working with Fintech Scotland and Scottish Enterprise to help develop the eco system here in Scotland. Through their ongoing work to encourage and support emerging innovation and investment potential, there is a real opportunity to position Scotland as one of the leading centres for Fintech innovation, collaboration and growth ”“ and we’re delighted to be playing a part in this.”

What FinTechs really need”¦ And why it helps to ask them

Fintech”¦the realm of Open Banking, Data Sets, IOT, VR & AR Platforms, Data science, WCDI, sandboxes, Secure IT”¦..

All very Tech orientated, as the name suggests! So, when global Digital Transformation and IT service providers Sopra Steria teamed up with sector growth enabler FinTech Scotland to support the FinTech community, they made a fair assumption that the most valuable help they could offer would be access to UK banking systems as a development and testing environment.

Seemed logical, so the project to prepare this infrastructure entered the planning phase. However, before moving into build, the team took a step back and decided to present the initial concepts to a selection of Fintech MDs and CEOs.

Good job they did.

25% of Scotland’s FinTechs were interviewed, with only two of them giving the idea the thumbs up, and only one saying it was something they’d value enough to pay for. (note: it wasn’t necessarily going to charged for, but the question was a great indicator of value)

So, the main assumption had been wrong”¦.a discovery that has saved a lot of time and money being invested in something that wasn’t necessarily needed by the customer. Not that it can’t be offered at some point, it’s just not the priority or part of the MVP.

However, the in-depth interviews also unearthed some even more surprising information. When asked about the main issues and challenges facing their businesses, the feedback had a lot in common with start-ups and innovators in other sectors:

Finding the right people, especially IT specialists

Lacking a support network, experienced Execs and mentors who had “been there and done that”

Knowing how to scale operationally

Funding

The verdict”¦?

FinTechs are just like any other business and they face the same challenges. They are founded by entrepreneurs, not necessarily “Tech” experts.

The conclusion”¦.?

Genuine, unbiased customer insight and feedback is vital at the very start of any innovation process, whether it’s starting a new business or developing a new product or service. Under-rated and rarely done properly, it doesn’t have to be an expensive or lengthy process.

In today’s agile world it can done in a matter of weeks, but can save months of wasted time and resource, and £000’s of investment.

https://propositionb.com/proposition-Development

Fortnightly FinTech Fuse ”“ In The FinTech Community

Being with the fintech community every day, is one of the most enjoyable parts of my role, I just wish there were more hours in the day!

Hearing directly from fintech leaders and teams about the opportunities and challenges in reinventing financial services and more is hugely motivating.

Vibrant Community

For example, last Friday it was great to be amongst the vibrant fintech community in Codebase and catch up with the wonderful team at Wallet Services. So exciting to hear from Peter Ferry, Hannah Rudman and Stuart Fraser on the terrific progress they are making.

The Wallet Services are grasping major opportunities beyond fintech itself and they are very much at the cutting edge of shaping the future though new technology. Absolutely inspring.

More generally, the feedback from Hannah on how we take FinTech Scotland forward in the future was hugely valuable and we’ll be discussing more on this at the forthcoming FinTech Practitioners Community Group meeting on 22ndAugust.

Another fintech enterprise leading the way in their field is Previse and meeting up this week with Paul Christensen, the chief executive, reinforced to me the significant role they are playing in improving supplier payment processes which is having a huge positive impact on the broader economy.

I believe the progress being made by Wallet Services and Previse provides enormous encouragement to the wider fintech community who are at an earlier stage of their journey.

For example, talking with Kirsty Thomson and Ron Smith on their plans for an innovative technology proposition engaging the local communities across Scotland further demonstrated to me that there are some exciting developments coming out of Dundee

This was very much highlighted by the fabulous special supplement on fintech produced by the Dundee Courier last week.

Later that same day, it was terrific to catch up with one of the newer members of the fintech community, Joseph Twigg of Aveni. Fascinating to hear how their artificial intelligence innovations can transform the way financial services engages with customers.

I know both the Aveni and The Circle CityCrowd team are going to be very busy connecting with the wider community to discuss their emerging propositions in the coming months

Connecting Community

One of the key roles of FinTech Scotland is connecting the fintech community with new opportunities and the recent meeting with the team at Baillie Gifford regarding their forthcoming innovation fair is a great example of this.

Similarly, meeting yesterday with a long standing industry colleague Calum Brewster at the fast expanding Julius Baer to share potential connection opportunities in the wealth management space.

There are an increasing number of large financial institutions who are recognising the opportunities of collaborating with the fintech community and I very much appreciate the support of Graeme Jones, Bronwyn Torrie and the SFE team in this respect.

JP Morgan have led the way on this for some time now and I enjoyed catching up with Stephen Flaherty and Sandy Brodie to discuss how we share fintech collaboration at their forthcoming fintech leadership event.

David Macmillan and the team at Prudential are another terrific example of people embracing this new era of innovation and collaboration for the sector

This week I’ve been working with Douglas Graham, Alice Dreano and Edinburgh Innovations team look at running a collaboration event for later this year which will foster more connections between large enterprises and fintech firms alongside the expertise of the University teams

Plans are already in place for the University of Strathclyde S100 event in September connecting fintech firms with those that can provide practical support to enable their progress and growth.

Brilliant to be working with the excellent Tracy Moore, Fiona Ireland and Alan Feighery from the Enterprise Hub at the University on this.

Similarly, very excited to be supported the plans of our community member MoneyMatix and their plans for a fintech fireworks hackathon’. Very much a chance to engage the wider consumer communities in the positive role of fintech. Inspiring work by Tynah Matembe and Helene Rodger.

Beyond specific events, I am thrilled to be working closely with the energetic Vivolution team (Mark Roger, Andrew McGee, Kevin Lonergan) and Proposition Builder team (Carey McEvoy, Mark Thomson), who are making these connections happen on the ground.

A great example of this was the discussion the Vivolution team and I had with Andy Smith of Agenor Iceflo team on working closely with our strategic partners

I am fortunate I have had the opportunity to share the value of this connected community with June Love at the Scottish Government, so we can consider how we amplify across other sectors through the CanDo initiative. More on this strategy to come

Strategic Community

Talking of strategy, this last two weeks has presented me with the opportunity to share the developments in the fintech community at a strategic level with key stakeholders across the Government and civil service as well as the regulator.

This has included making plans to welcome Government Ministers from Scotland and the UK to Fintech Scotland to hear about the progress and key challenges in driving forward innovation. Thank you to Karen Rodger, Tom Price and Oz Bas for the team work on this.

In addition, I’ve been hugely encouraged by my joint discussions with Maggie Craig of the FCA, Douglas Graham of the University of Edinburgh and Adrian Gillespie and Tim Bedford of the University of Strathclyde over this last fortnight on how we support the fintech community going forward.

This will progress further in various ways in the coming months and one example where it is already gaining momentum is in developing the open banking centre of excellence. Here I’ve valued the team work with Gavin Littlejohn, Kevin Collins and the rest of the project team.

Come along to the Open Banking Meet Up on 20th August where I’ll be sharing more on this and why it has been an absorbing month on this subject!

Sharing Community

Talking of sharing, it was brilliant to catch up with the energetic Hamish Miller, Kevin O’Sullivan and Will Peakin of FutureScot on how we can work together to share more widely the awesome fintech developments happening in Scotland. Thanks guys.

There is going to a huge amount of activity in September and you’ll start to hear details of the Fintech Scotland Fortnight in our newsletter today!

A massive thanks to Rory Archibald from Visit Scotland for enormous support in preparing the fintech Scotland is Now’ plans as well as the numerous people organising specific conferences and meet ups.

A key event will be FinTech Summit on 19th and 20th September run by leading tech commentators Ray Bugg and Pete Swift from Digit where they tell me I will be put in the fintech hot’ seat!!

Very much enjoyed the meeting with Polly Purvis to hear how the impressive ScotSoft 2018 conference plans are coming along which we will be participating in along with members of the fintech community.

I’m really excited about Fintech Scotland closer collaboration with Polly and the team at Scotland IS and this was reinforced to me when meeting with Graeme Smith of Amazon to consider mutual innovation opportunities with the fintech community.

Great chats last week with Glasgow fintech fanatics Bobby King and Sergei Pomphrey as well as Rob Huggins of MBN Solutions about their forthcoming fintech events

With Rob the focus of our discussion soon moved onto how we encourage greater diversity across the community, an important mission for us both.

I know Eva Schuekel at Spotcap through the Fintech Fellowship programme has the aim of inclusion at its core and this is why I have been delighted to be involved

Similarly, working with David Nisbet of University of Glasgow in developing the fintech talent for the future to support academic and industry collaboration.

I’m also excited about the fintech collaboration opportunities with Edinburgh Napier University after meeting with their dean of the business school Gail Boag, thank you Gary Kildare of IBM for making this connection.

The subject of sharing the great diverse talent in Scotland with the fintech community was also a key talking point with Graham Burns and Michael Dickson of FWB Park Brown this week. Looking forward to giving this people factor greater prominence in the fintech community in the coming months.

Community Running

The meeting with Graham Burns on Tuesday got slightly side tracked as we shared our stories of doing the Aberdour Donkey Brae 7 mile race a couple of weekends ago. Always a fabulous race to do despite the challenging community hill’!

The running chat with Peter Ferry last Friday was also fun as we shared our love of pounding the streets. This was just before I completed a beautiful half marathon race at Dunoon the following day and achieved a seasonal PB!

Next up are two more half marathons at each end of the Lothian running community. Starting in the east with the Haddington half marathon race on Saturday and followed by the West Lothian 13.1 mile race at Bathgate next weekend.

Maybe we should start a fintech running community! Until next time.